Google's #myAndroid Lets You Discover Your Perfect Home Screen
If there's one thing Android is famous, sometimes infamous, for is the sheer amount of customization possibilities available to the user. Even without diving into power user knobs and switches, anyone can tweak their home screen (and more) to suit their tastes and needs. The sheer number of options, however, can also have a paralyzing effect. To help users make sense of the chaos, Google has silently launched a new #myAndroid web tool that tries to recommend some options for you. And all you need to do is take a quiz.
It's really like one of those hundreds of online quizzes that can psychically determine your personality type, Hogwarts house, or favorite fictional character. Being Google, you can expect the #myAndroid quiz to have more science than those, but the process is pretty much the same. You are given some choices about your design tastes and Google compiles them into a themed recommendation.
The quiz itself shouldn't take more than a few minutes, depending on how long you spend on an "A or B" question. The choices go through the gamut of choices for wallpapers, color palettes, icons, and some odd ones that resemble a psychological test. In the end, Google spits out three final choices, each of which includes a suggested wallpaper, launcher, icon pack, and widgets. Surprisingly, Google isn't limiting itself to is own Google Now/Pixel launcher, which can't possibly cover all possible use cases. It also recommends third party launchers, though those are most likely curated by Google staffers.
The world of Android customization is vast, free-wheeling, and confusing, so it's high time someone, like Google, tried to at least make the process a bit less daunting. Of course, it only scratches the tip of the iceberg of what's possible, but that tip is sometimes all that majority of users need to get started.
And to really drive (pun intended) the point home, Google has revealed it will be taking its "#myAndroid Truck" for a spin. The LED display covered truck can be customized with some Fisher-Price looking knobs and toggles, just to emphasize how customizable Android is.
